The Love Song of Two Idiots
by sefkhet
Summary: "It's not as if I have a harem of eligible young women who I can call on for pity dates." Leo needs a date. Harry thinks this is all a terrible idea. Harry never could say no to him.


"I need a date."

Perched on the edge of Harry's desk, checking to see that there was nobody around to overhear them, and wearing a faintly pathetic expression, Leo felt less like an internationally respected pathologist and more like a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. Harry tugged a folder out from where Leo had sat down on top of it. "And a good morning to you, too," he said drily.

"Seriously."

"Seriously, what's brought this on?" Only partly paying attention, Harry flipped a page and looked for a working biro.

"It's the Royal College dinner next week," said Leo. "It's eight months since I ended things with Janet, and I have to spend an evening with a room full of people who are all going to try to set me up with their cousins or their sisters – " He shuddered. " – or their daughters, Harry. I need a date."

"They're professionals, Leo. I'm sure they'll do nothing of the sort."

"They're gossips," he said flatly. "Mrs Gianelli, and I know she basically runs the place, but, honestly, between her and Nikki, who the hell even needs a mother? She's taken to clucking at me whenever I have to go to the College."

Harry frowned, although it was impossible to say whether at something in his report or at the prospect of Mrs Gianelli's clucking . "So take a date," he said, reasonably. "You could take Meg. You could make a dent in what I'm certain are the several hundred dinners you must owe her."

"I'll look desperate."

Harry charitably didn't point out that he clearly was desperate.

Leo paused. "Anyway, I've already asked her and she's going to Venice."

"S'a long way to go just to avoid being her brother' s beard," he mumbled. "You can take Nikki."

"She's got a date."

At that, Harry actually dropped his pen and looked interested. "Oh, has she?"

"Oh, that gets your attention."

"Oh, like it didn't get yours."

"I tried interrogating her last night, but she proved surprisingly good at withholding information about him even with the best part of three gins and tonics in her, so you'll just have to bide your time like the rest of us." Leo glared pointedly. "You'll forgive me for sounding self-centered if I say that none of that is getting you and I anywhere with _my_ problem."

"I sympathise, Leo, but it's not as if I have a harem of eligible young women who I can call upon for pity dates. I'm not sure what exactly you expect – " He peered up cautiously. At the hopeful expression on Leo's face, he manfully resisted the urge to bang his head back down onto the desk. "No."

"Are you going with someone else?"

"I've been planning to _not go_," Harry said firmly, although the effect was admittedly ruined somewhat by the way he was saying it into his hands.

"Please?"

"Do you really think that that's going to make them cluck less?" he asked incredulously. "The president of the College is _suddenly gay_? And dating his young and attractive assistant?"

"Bisexual, not gay," Leo protested, reasonably, he felt. "And you aren't that young and you aren't my assistant, and when did _for the last fifty-four years_ start being _suddenly_? And if any of it keeps them from trying to marry me off, I find that I don't much _care_."

"Leo."

"I will owe you dinner and a stupid action film of your choice," he said solemnly. "Please."

"Christ, Leo, it's a good job – " Harry grimaced, appeared to rewind and then listen to what he had just said, and started again. "Oh, never mind. You will tell me that I look just exactly like James Bond in my tuxedo, you will under no circumstances expect me to dance, you will keep me well supplied with alcohol throughout the evening, and you will run interference for me with the SIO on this gang shooting." He held up one finger. "And, yes, damn right you will owe me dinner."

"Yes," said Leo. "Anything. All."

"And if you could manufacture a well-timed murder that will get us both out of it, I would be unlikely to object."

"A wee bit unethical." He balanced one hand on Harry's shoulder and craned his neck, looking curiously at the photographs scattered across the desk. "Now, tell me, what trouble is it that I've just agreed to get myself into with the police for you?"

* * *

_"Tell them that your hot date was delayed by work," Harry had said on the phone, between swearing at traffic on the M4. "It's short, believable, and has the merit of being true. And, though it pains me to say this, I will be there as soon as I possibly can."_

_"You're not going to turn up in a SOCO suit, are you?"_

_"Do you want me there or do you not want me there?" he'd demanded. And huffed: "Bond always manages to pull off bloodstains."_

_"__Do try not to declare war on Surrey on your way in, 007," Leo had said, grinning._

So it was that Leo found himself standing alone in the Garden Room of BMA House, being descended on by the formidable secretary of the Royal College of Pathologists while Harry was, he assumed, still stuck somewhere between Farnborough and Euston. He wondered whether it would be too beneath the dignity of his position to hide behind a plant.

"Professor Dalton!" Francesca Gianelli brushed invisible lint off his tuxedo. She had, as he had told Harry, an Italian grandmother's ability to sound both exasperated and sympathetic at the same time. "It's good to see you, Professor. We don't see you often enough at the College these days. And you've come alone tonight?"

"Only temporarily," he tried to reassure her. "I'm expecting my – er, partner. Traffic."

She clucked. "It's not polite to keep a gentleman waiting."

"The perils of having a pathologist as one's date," he said with what he hoped was a smile rather than a grimace. "I can hardly pretend not to understand, can I?"

And then, like an oasis in the desert, over Mrs Gianelli's shoulder, appeared Harry, straightening his cuffs and looking around the room with an air of expectation. His appearance was rather that of someone who had been dragged through a hedge backwards, hair blown every which way, and he was tie-less, pale throat and five o'clock shadow rising from the open collar of his dress shirt, but he was here and still managing to be the most beautiful thing in the room.

And, eyes never moving from him as he cut across the room towards them, Leo noted with relief that he appeared to be absent the threatened bloodstains.

"I'm sorry," he said, walking directly into Leo's personal space. "For being late – "

"You're here now."

" - and one of the 'bodies' was not, actually, a body, in the sense of being not dead, and my bow-tie became a casualty of needing a tourniquet – "

"It works on you."

" – and I had no time to go home and make myself less scruffy – "

"You're gorgeous," Leo said honestly.

" – and – Oh." Harry's mouth caught up with his brain and he stuttered to a halt. Leo was fascinated to see the tips of his ears turning pink. Harry Cunningham, _blushing_? "Well. Okay."

Mrs Gianelli was watching them with undisguised interest.

"Mrs Gianelli, I'm sure you know Dr Cunningham," said Leo.

"Certainly," she replied.

"I apologise for my rudeness just then," Harry said.

"It's a pleasure to see you, Dr Cunningham. The professor was telling me that you had been caught up with work."

Harry eyed Leo. "It's been a bit of a day," he acknowledged.

She inclined her head. "I'll leave you to your evening, gentlemen. Professor, I believe they're serving dinner in a half an hour."

Rid of unwanted company, Leo turned his full attention back to Harry. "_Not dead_?" he asked disbelievingly.

"I'll save my rant about the incompetence of the emergency services for later," Harry murmured. "Now, I believe you were flattering me."

"And you were blushing."

"I was _not_."

"You _were_."

"Are we interrupting something, boys?" asked a richly amused voice from behind Harry. Nikki, resplendent in cornflower blue, towing with her a man dressed in the uniform of an army captain.

Leo leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. "No, not at all."

"Leo, this is Captain Tom Reynolds. Tom, Professor Leo Dalton of the Lyell Centre."

"Royal Army Medical Corps," he said, reaching for Leo's outstretched hand.

"And of course you already know Harry Cunningham," she said.

"You know Harry?" asked Leo, although he could hardly have failed to notice Harry's dropped jaw and startled eyes.

"Not for about twenty years," said Harry drily. "It's, er, good to see you, Tom."

Leo's eyes darted back and forth between them. He had the sense that if he opened his mouth, he might put his foot in it. "You can tell us tales of our Harry's misspent youth, then," he teased. "How do you two know each other?"

Mouth opened.

"Harry was my medical school boyfriend," said Tom easily. "Now, as for Nikki – "

They glanced at each other and giggled, but now it was Leo's jaw that was on the floor, foot inserted and all, while Harry turned white. An indistinct noise came from his corner of the little group, and he fled.

Leo dithered for all of twenty seconds. He abandoned his champagne glass into the hands of a confused Captain Reynolds and went after his date.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell me?" Leo winced at the sound of his own voice, echoing around the deserted terrace. He hadn't meant to shout. "I'm sorry," he said, more quietly. "Why, Harry?"

"It didn't seem important."

Leo glared. "Harry."

"I didn't know how."

"Nikki knows," he said, half a question and half not, trying, not altogether successfully, not to sound hurt.

"You're not Nikki," Harry protested. "I spent most of our first two years working together trying not to trip up over my own feet and by the time we knew each other well enough to talk about that sort of thing, it seemed too complicated to bring it up."

"I thought we trusted each other," said Leo. "I thought – good God, Harry, after _everything_ – I thought you knew that you could tell me things."

"I trust you," Harry said, and he had a look on his face that on anyone else Leo would have called fond. "But there are some secrets that should stay secret. No, Leo, even from you."

"Did you think that I'd – react badly?" At that, Leo did sound hurt and couldn't bring himself to care.

"No, not about that. Just let it go, Leo. OK?"

"But you knew about me," he said. "You knew _everything about me_."

"_Leo._"

"All right," agreed Leo, reluctantly. "All right. But if you need to talk or…" He trailed off. "I don't know, if you need to throw things or someone to get drunk with or someone to be there in the middle of the night. If you need any of the things that you've always done for me and I've never thanked you for," he said, helplessly. "I've been a crap friend, Harry."

And all the worse, he knew, for the questions that he now couldn't shut off in his own mind.

_Is it because you knew my wife?_

_Is it because you're in love with Nikki?_

Or, _was it just me that you never wanted?_

Harry scrubbed a hand over his face. "Oh, Leo," he said, half to himself. "You always try so hard to be good." It didn't seem to require a response, and then he was standing in front of him. "I'm sorry," Harry murmured. "You can file a harrassment complaint in the morning, all right?"

He took Leo's face in both hands and kissed him. It was soft and chaste, as if Harry were worried about scaring him off, and then, gathering together some of his scattered wits, Leo shifted and changed their angles and his tongue was in Harry's mouth, which he thought vaguely hadn't been quite what he had intended to do, but Harry was making a pleased noise against his lips and sliding his fingers into Leo's hair, and he gave himself up to it. Harry kissed like he did everything else, intense and single-minded, and it was dizzying.

Leo couldn't have said how long they'd stood there before footsteps at the door brought them back to themselves and they broke apart.

Leo looked at Harry, at his blown pupils and his rumpled tuxedo and the tufts of hair that were sticking up from the top of his head. "Oh, you _idiot_," he said.

Harry froze. "I'm _sorry_," he repeated miserably.

"I didn't mean it like that." Leo's thumb brushed over Harry's bottom lip. He leaned in and kissed him again, briefly. "Jesus, Harry, how long – "

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself," Harry said. He smiled, sheepishly. "Long enough," he added. And: "I promise, this doesn't have to be weird. You know now that the people I sleep with are not exclusively women, and you know now why I've never told you before, and we can now go about forgetting that _any of this_ ever happened."

Leo pinched the bridge of his nose. God help him, Harry gave him a headache at the best of times.

"What if I can't?" he asked. "What if I don't want to?"

"I'm looking for – Oh!" A young man in a dark suit – _wait staff_, Leo's brain supplied – rounded the corner and stuttered. "I'm sorry. Professor Dalton." He looked from Leo to Harry and back again. "Professor Dalton?" As though dubious that either of them were Professor Dalton. "They're about to serve dinner."

Leo nodded. He vanished.

"Leo – "

"Look," he said. "This is clearly neither the time nor the place. But – just don't run away." He straightened Harry's shirt collar. "I'll drive you home after."

* * *

For him, dinner was a futile exercise in self-control. Harry sat in the next seat all evening, being witty and charming, looking beautiful and rumpled, making intelligent conversation and, Leo thought, no longer trying to hide the want in his eyes every time they happened to land on Leo. Or had it been there all along and Leo had only seen now that he knew it was all right to look? God, forget Harry, they were _both_ idiots.

And to only two people, perhaps three, in the world, would the utter misery on his face while he was doing it all be obvious.

It was all Leo could do not to drag him off before they even came round with coffee.

And when they had escaped as soon as was decently polite, it was only the pressing need to not crash the car and end up on his own mortuary slab that kept Leo from staring at him the whole way back to Harry's flat.

By the time he pulled up outside, he still hadn't worked out how to start the conversation.

"Thanks," said Harry, making a brief gesture that could have meant anything from "for the lift" to "for not summarily firing me when that thing happened that I'd rather not talk about".

The corners of Leo's mouth turned up. "No, thank _you_, for redeeming what would have been an unbearable evening."

Harry reached for the door handle.

"Ask me in," Leo said.

"Why?" asked Harry, helplessly

"Because if I let you go in there alone, you'll climb into a bottle of Scotch and spend half the night convincing yourself that I hate you, when nothing could be further from the truth, and then you'll come into work tomorrow pretending that none of tonight ever happened, which shouldn't be difficult given that you seem to have already forgotten the part where _I kissed you back_," Leo wound up, perhaps louder than he had intended to be.

"You don't like men."

He stared. "Harry, two weeks ago you asked me what the clucking grandmothers at the college would think of you, of you being my date and me being _suddenly gay_, and did I or did I not look you in the eye and tell you not gay, bisexual?"

Harry gaped. "I thought that was a thing you were saying just to say to _them_."

"No, that was a thing I was saying _because it was true_."

"You. Really?"

"I thought you knew," said Leo. "I never thought it was a secret." And that was true, too.

"But. Theresa."

"_Bisexual_," he snapped.

Harry closed his eyes. "You – back there, you asked me how long," he said.

"And you said that you refused to answer on the grounds that you might incriminate yourself."

"Yes," said Harry. He opened his eyes and looked at Leo. "How long?"

"Oh, far longer than that." Very slowly, trying to make certain that his intentions would be crystal clear, Leo leaned across the gearstick, brushed his fingertips over Harry's now-well-past-five-o-clock shadow, and tilted his head and fitted his mouth over Harry's. A long minute later, he broke off. "Ask me in," he repeated.

Harry nodded.

* * *

Leo had had a vague idea, when he had essentially invited himself in, that they might have coffee and talk, without audience or expectation or the trappings of their jobs surrounding them.

This wasn't going to be a one night thing for him. It was never about that.

How many people got to have _two_ loves of their lives?

And although he thought that they were on the same page with that, they should talk, soberly, sensibly, make sure they had the same expectations before they set about ruining their friendship.

In reality, they were still on the wrong side of the door, Harry's key halfway into the lock, when their respective senses of self-control gave up the ghost and they ended up wrapped around each other.

"Mmm."

"Christ."

"Fuck."

"Leo. Leo, stop." Leo stopped, alarm spiking and then immediately receding when Harry's mouth chased his as he pulled away. "I've got an actual flat," he murmured, breathless and laughing. "Just the other side of this door. And horizontal surfaces with sheets and pillows, where my neighbours might not find us rutting against each other like the sixteen-year-olds we aren't."

* * *

Of course, that made it awkward.

Or, not awkward, but –

But by the time they had scrabbled around in the dust for the key, which had fallen with a clunk to the ground sometime between Leo putting his hands on Harry's hips and Harry undoing Leo's tie, and knocked foreheads, and dealt with Harry's alarm system, and now Harry was _actually_ making coffee.

He handed it to Leo in a chipped blue mug, stepping right into his personal space. Just like he had done when he'd arrived at BMA House that night. Just like he had been doing for years, Leo now saw.

I love you, he thought.

"Tell me about the body who wasn't a body," he said instead, and snagged his belt loops, tugging him closer.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I love you for your brain and your ego and your sarcasm and your temper as much as I love you for how devastatingly attractive you are in black tie." He put down the coffee and tilted Harry's chin up. "I'm not in this for a quick fuck. I thought I'd been clear about that."

Harry was silent, gathering his scattered wits. He kissed Leo's fingertips. "I've been in love with you for nearly half my life," he said frankly. "A nearly half my life that included a time when I still had spots and a time when you were still married, and that's the real reason why I never told you about me. I thought that if you knew, it wouldn't take much for you to work out that my embarrassing hero-worship thing – oh, don't even, Leo, not even you can have been oblivious enough to not see that – wasn't, actually, so much with the hero-worship." Leo thought that somewhere in there he might have been insulted. "So," said Harry. "I'm not in this for a quick fuck, either. And what I really meant was, _really, stories about combine harvesters and spurting arterial blood are what turn you on?_"

"No," said Leo. "Of course not. But stories about you being competent and self-righteous, on the other hand…"

Harry's peals of laughter carried them all the way to the bedroom.


End file.
